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Halo Anniversary |OT| It All Comes Full Circle

Ken

Member
Hawk269 said:
Ok, but what do they do though? When I say "Analyze" the game goes into a scan like mode, some stuff is higlighted like weopons, people etc. Is that all it does? Yelling Scan has not netted anything yet.

Point at the orange things and say Scan. Then hold the reticule on the object until the blue bar around the reticule fills up. If it's successful, it will say something like "Elite Major was added to the library." If it failed, it will say something like "Unable to scan." If the latter occurs, just try again.
 

heckfu

Banned
Had some awesome games tonight with Havok, Tunavi, Thermite, etc. I seriously haven't had this much fun in Halo since 2 and launch of 3. Classic mode trumps loadouts IMO every time.
 

Ken

Member
heckfu said:
Had some awesome games tonight with Havok, Tunavi, Thermite, etc. I seriously haven't had this much fun in Halo since 2 and launch of 3. Classic mode trumps loadouts IMO every time.

Are you guys done for the night?
 
It is so far everything I wanted in a remake except for the framerate / garbage collection issues and texture pops. It is amazing how well the core gameplay has held up.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Warm Machine said:
It is so far everything I wanted in a remake except for the framerate / garbage collection issues and texture pops. It is amazing how well the core gameplay has held up.

Yea without a doubt the gameplay holds up amazingly. I figured right though that I would miss weapon swaping and vehicle boarding and I do without a doubt. It really is amazing how much those added to Halo.
 

Ecrofirt

Member
I'm just chiming in to say I'm more than a little peeved that my shipment didn't arrive from Amazon today, even though they had release day delivery.

Here's my current status:
Latest Event: Breinigsville PA
Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit - November 14, 2011 2:26:35 PM

UPS.com says it hasn't even received the package from Amazon yet.

Grrrr.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Ecrofirt said:
I'm just chiming in to say I'm more than a little peeved that my shipment didn't arrive from Amazon today, even though they had release day delivery.

Here's my current status:


UPS.com says it hasn't even received the package from Amazon yet.

Grrrr.

Wow. Amazon's never failed me. I bet if you email them they'll make it up to you.
 
Ecrofirt said:
I'm just chiming in to say I'm more than a little peeved that my shipment didn't arrive from Amazon today, even though they had release day delivery.

Here's my current status:


UPS.com says it hasn't even received the package from Amazon yet.

Grrrr.
Call Amazon, they should refund your money.

Edit: Psycho didn't see your post. Hadn't refreshed the page.
 
Oozer3993 said:
Is the first early Banshee in AotCR still there? Because, for the life of me, I can't spring it off the platform. I don't remember having this much trouble with it in the original.
Yeah I think it's different somehow. goatrope and I spent 20+ minutes on it, and I can say that back in the day we could do it without fail...

I know that at least a few little quirks/glitches have been changed/fixed in Anniversary. Likely not intentional, but the game is NOT identical.
 

darthbob

Member
Devin Olsen said:
Yeah I think it's different somehow. goatrope and I spent 20+ minutes on it, and I can say that back in the day we could do it without fail...

I know that at least a few little quirks/glitches have been changed/fixed in Anniversary. Likely not intentional, but the game is NOT identical.

We're talking about the one right after you get the tank, right?

In the original, I'd get right under the platform, shoot a rocket straight in the middle or so, and a Banshee would topple off. Not so in CEA.

:'(
 

Ramirez

Member
THIS is Halo. 10 years later and the campaign still has the best art direction, sandbox, fun AI to fight against, etc. etc.

So good. Please take Halo 4 in this direction.

Legendary is still brutal in this game to me, I breezed through the other games on Legendary, but I have to take my time, but it's fun, I know the AI got better technically in the later games, but the CE Elites are just more fun to fight for me for whatever reason.
 

Nutter

Member
Oozer3993 said:
Silent Cartographer shortcut still works! And the random rock inside the facility now appears to be a grunt mask.
:) , There are several other easter eggs like that.

Also who wants to do some COOP.
 
D

Deleted member 21120

Unconfirmed Member
darthbob said:
We're talking about the one right after you get the tank, right?

In the original, I'd get right under the platform, shoot a rocket straight in the middle or so, and a Banshee would topple off. Not so in CEA.

:'(
I've never been able to do it that way and I've tried a hundred times over the past ten years. I always have to climb up above the tunnel entrance and use the sniper zoom and rocket launcher to knock it off.

I honestly believe it is identical. In Anniversary, I've slid down the side of the AotCR cliff wall, spun the Warthog to slide myself behind the locking door of the Cartographer's entrance, grenade jumped up in the active camo room during the Cartographer escape, rode the Pelican back down to the spinning rings in the first room in AotCR, fell down with the Banshee alongside the frozen waterfall in Two Betrayals and hopped back in it before the fall timer caught me, and shield bumped into the ceiling to bypass most of Keyes.

I didn't actually work on the game, like touch the code and whatnot, but from my understanding of how it was made, and from my experience retrying all of my old tricks, it's really identical.
 

malfcn

Member
I may just put in my non-hd copy to see how I'd like to replay this in HD. I am not a huge Halo fan (have played them all though), and would need a MP group to play with. Maybe I should try some Reach with GAFfers.
 

soldat7

Member
Tunavi said:
Headlong is everything I dreamed of

Indeed. The MP levels are a work of art.

Tunavi said:
Didn't think they could make the best Halo campaign better but they did.

I'm not digging the new art design for the campaign, unfortunately. I'll play through once just because, but the clean, sterile, and dark look of the original had an ominous tone that just isn't matched here.
 

Nutter

Member
Cocopjojo said:
I've never been able to do it that way and I've tried a hundred times over the past ten years. I always have to climb up above the tunnel entrance and use the sniper zoom and rocket launcher to knock it off.

I honestly believe it is identical. In Anniversary, I've slid down the side of the AotCR cliff wall, spun the Warthog to slide myself behind the locking door of the Cartographer's entrance, grenade jumped up in the active camo room during the Cartographer escape, rode the Pelican back down to the spinning rings in the first room in AotCR, fell down with the Banshee alongside the frozen waterfall in Two Betrayals and hopped back in it before the fall timer caught me, and shield bumped into the ceiling to bypass most of Keyes.

I didn't actually work on the game, like touch the code and whatnot, but from my understanding of how it was made, and from my experience retrying all of my old tricks, it's really identical.
The game is really identical, all tricks you could do in CE, you can do here. I have done them many times myself to see if they were possible.
 

soldat7

Member
Biggest-Geek-Ever said:
My only real complaint about the new engine... Enemies don't spurt fountains of blood when you hit their corpses. =(

Switch to classic mode, beat the tar out of them, and go back to ugly mode. The purple spatter will be there.
 
The Xtortionist said:
Is is wrong that switching between the AR and pistol over and over is just as entertaining to me as anything else in the game.
Nope, in fact I always liked switching back from shotgun to pistol for the sound. kl-ch-ch-kl-ch-ch
it doesn't sound right with the new sounds :(
 

Striker

Member
Ramirez said:
Legendary is still brutal in this game to me, I breezed through the other games on Legendary, but I have to take my time, but it's fun, I know the AI got better technically in the later games, but the CE Elites are just more fun to fight for me for whatever reason.
I thought Halo CE's Legendary was the easiest, but it was challenging and amazingly fun at the same moment. You didn't have constant BS getting pushed in your way as you did in later Halo campaign modes. And I agree about the Elite part, they were great, and it's a shame it came down to Brutes as the main fighting enemy at one point. BRUTES.
 

Trasher

Member
Ramirez said:
THIS is Halo. 10 years later and the campaign still has the best art direction, sandbox, fun AI to fight against, etc. etc.

So good. Please take Halo 4 in this direction.

Legendary is still brutal in this game to me, I breezed through the other games on Legendary, but I have to take my time, but it's fun, I know the AI got better technically in the later games, but the CE Elites are just more fun to fight for me for whatever reason.
If it ain't broke, dont' fix it.
 
Rickenslacker said:
Nope, in fact I always liked switching back from shotgun to pistol for the sound. kl-ch-ch-kl-ch-ch
it doesn't sound right with the new sounds :(

I think it's that pistol draw animation.

Fuck why don't more shooters have cool draw animations.
 
Cocopjojo said:
I've never been able to do it that way and I've tried a hundred times over the past ten years. I always have to climb up above the tunnel entrance and use the sniper zoom and rocket launcher to knock it off.

I honestly believe it is identical. In Anniversary, I've slid down the side of the AotCR cliff wall, spun the Warthog to slide myself behind the locking door of the Cartographer's entrance, grenade jumped up in the active camo room during the Cartographer escape, rode the Pelican back down to the spinning rings in the first room in AotCR, fell down with the Banshee alongside the frozen waterfall in Two Betrayals and hopped back in it before the fall timer caught me, and shield bumped into the ceiling to bypass most of Keyes.

I didn't actually work on the game, like touch the code and whatnot, but from my understanding of how it was made, and from my experience retrying all of my old tricks, it's really identical.

Nutter said:
The game is really identical, all tricks you could do in CE, you can do here. I have done them many times myself to see if they were possible.

I get what you two are saying, but I can almost 100% confirm that at least two glitches no longer work.

this will be tough to explain..

In Halo: CE the elevator switches on AotCR (Seen here (video)) you could run into them and bump yourself out of the map or into the elevator. In CEA nothing happens, you don't bump you just run into it and nothing happens.
(lol accidentally made the clip over an hour long, just check out the beginning to see what I am talking abou)

Similar style of tricking... Bumping out of the map POA to touch the level Halo... In CE you could do it with two players using a bizare bumping glitch. (Seen here (video)). However in CEA nothing happens at all, you don't bump you just simply cannot do it. (disclaimer, it may still be possible, but from what I have tried it seems to just simply not work any more).

Extra - Here is about six minutes of goatrope and I trying to blast down the Banshee on AotCR... This isn't proving the fact that it won't work anymore, we could very well have just been doing it wrong, but honestly it seems unlikely.

Video

edit again - Object Overloading also seems to be impossible now... gaotrope and I tried it yesterday and before bodies started disappearing the game crashed. lol
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
I'm think I'm going to have to go through the campaign again. After that night level, I don't really remember much of the campaign from back in the day.

Don't hurt me
 

clav

Member
Man, why couldn't multiplayer have a 60 round AR and a pistol with more ammo?

At least change the AR round to 60 for classic anniversary.

Aside from that, I'm enjoying it.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
So Complete on normal with all skulls and terminals found. Terminals were all pretty easy to find and skulls were easy to find and get to minus two of them that were a pain to get to. So I'll give my final thoughts on it with new graphics and sound. I'll start with negatives first.

Cons:

Texture pop in on the first two levels and final level is bad. The last level was just beyond awful with it up until warthog run. Engine room was the worst offender here. I can't help but think that this would not be as bad if the option to switch them was there at all times. If moving it to a choice at the start menu would have fixed this I would have preferred that

Pause before cutscenes annoying. I can live with that though. Still annoying.

Some of the effects can be way over done. If your banshee is smoking and you're hovering you can't see shit for the smoke. Also night vision is useless. It blinds you. Luckily the game is lit up enough that you don't need to use it.

Surprisingly the only big graphical bug I noticed is that the Longsword doesn't appear to be sitting on the pad until after the cutscene at the end of the game. Kind of ruins the feeling to see a giant longsword suddenly pop in for the cutscene. Also not a big fan of some of the minor changes to some cutscenes.

Menus seem very jittery. Using the joystick it's very hard to pick an option. It's a lot like when I try to pick menu items in halo PC with my controller since it has no deadzone settings.

Could not find a way to turn off rumble and dear god I wish I could. The rumble is so damn overdone in this game that I want to turn it of. This is noticable the most when using automatic weapons and any vehicle's automatic weapons like machine guns on tank or ghosts cannons, etc.

Pros:

The graphics themselves when loaded in are extremely amazing. Everything looks great.

As I noted above I didn't like some changes to cutscenes but I did also liked a couple of the cutscene changes at the same time. I really liked the changes to the 343 GS cutscene with Keyes, Johnson, etc. That change to the end of it was a good change. Makes a certain someone make sense.

Quick loadtimes are nice. When you die you're right back into the action with no pause.

The Skulls are fun to find.

The terminals are just simply amazing. I can't rave over these enough. Without a doubt find these and enjoy them. They really enhance the game and universe a lot. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE

The soundtrack for the most part is amazing. Just two of the tunes did I not like the changes to. Still great soundtrack.

Sound effects are great. I love em all.

Conclusion:

So all those positives and negatives being what they are do I feel it was worth the 40 bucks? I feel that it's a mixed bag for me. Ultimately I will get my 40 bucks out of it just out of the co-op and terminals alone.

Now that all said I just have to say I did it Frankie. I played it all the way through without hitting the back button once. So now you can say someone has done that. lol
 

TUROK

Member
Ramirez said:
THIS is Halo. 10 years later and the campaign still has the best art direction, sandbox, fun AI to fight against, etc. etc.

So good. Please take Halo 4 in this direction.

Legendary is still brutal in this game to me, I breezed through the other games on Legendary, but I have to take my time, but it's fun, I know the AI got better technically in the later games, but the CE Elites are just more fun to fight for me for whatever reason.
I love the Halo formula, but Halo 4 needs some new aces up its sleeve.

It should be more faster paced, perhaps with some of the parkour elements that Crysis 2 has. I mean, the Spartans in the books deviate greatly from the Spartans in the games, it's time to bridge the gap a bit.
 

aznpxdd

Member
I wished this game was on PC :(

Even as an avid PC gamer, I have to admit Halo CE's SP is one of the best I've played and I would love to replay it with modern graphics.
 
D

Deleted member 21120

Unconfirmed Member
Devin Olsen said:
I get what you two are saying, but I can almost 100% confirm that at least two glitches no longer work.

this will be tough to explain..

In Halo: CE the elevator switches on AotCR (Seen here (video)) you could run into them and bump yourself out of the map or into the elevator. In CEA nothing happens, you don't bump you just run into it and nothing happens.
(lol accidentally made the clip over an hour long, just check out the beginning to see what I am talking abou)

Similar style of tricking... Bumping out of the map POA to touch the level Halo... In CE you could do it with two players using a bizare bumping glitch. (Seen here (video)). However in CEA nothing happens at all, you don't bump you just simply cannot do it. (disclaimer, it may still be possible, but from what I have tried it seems to just simply not work any more).

Extra - Here is about six minutes of goatrope and I trying to blast down the Banshee on AotCR... This isn't proving the fact that it won't work anymore, we could very well have just been doing it wrong, but honestly it seems unlikely.

Video

edit again - Object Overloading also seems to be impossible now... gaotrope and I tried it yesterday and before bodies started disappearing the game crashed. lol
Well, I stand corrected. I just tried the elevator switch glitch and it was immediately obvious that it was different.

Like I said, I didn't work on this project directly, but in my spare time I really ran the game through the ringer with testing classic glitches, like all the stuff I listed above, plus more (exiting a Ghost to push you through walls, spinning a Warthog to slide down a cliff and trick the fall timer, driving up specific cliffs in the second level where the angle was just barely enough to allow you to slowly make it to the top of the level, etc.). This elevator switch bug is the first thing I've seen that's different.

I'm a bit surprised but at the same time I'm not. The way your screen bounces around at the switch in the original retail is pretty weird, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was some major breakage happening behind the scenes that didn't carry over from the original hardware.

As far as the Banshee thing, I haven't tried that angle myself because I could never regularly do it in the original anyway, but I think I remember talking to someone in Test who did it the same way you and goatrope were doing it. I'll probably give it a try later this week. This one I would be surprised if it doesn't still work.
 

monome

Member
Hey, after reading Glasslands and having seen some Terminals from Halo Anniversary, I feel like discussing possible spoilers.

Since the end of Glasslands introduces a unamed major and powerfull ennemy (has to be be to wipe the center of the biggest covenant city), we're are treated by flashing and menacing Didact logos in the Terminals of Halo Anniversary.
Cryptum has introduced new lore about the Didact, mainly that the one refered to by 343 Guilty Spark is not the original one but is Cryptum main protagonist Bornstellar since the original Didact is dead by the end of Cryptum and has passed on his genes onto Bornstellar.
As Bornstellar seems not to be the main protagonist of Primordium as the book seems to switch to the perspective of an ancient Human, Chakas, what's up with the Didact?
Also in Primordium's introduction, Chakas is talking to one who he calls the last true reclaimer. Since Halo 4 and so on is the Reclaimer trilogy, I don't think I'm jumping the shark saying he is talking to the Master Chief.
Now what do we have : Master Chief meets the probably last ancient Human. Bornstellar has become the Didact. The Timeless one is the last of its kind and he has probably created the Flood to punish the Forunners from taking the Mantle from them.
But why would the Didact be an enemy of the Chief? in the terminals Guilty Spark says the reclaimers are better off taking on the Flood rather than the angry Didact.
What did the Librarian do with human DNA and why.
And why would the Didact have chosen to survive Halo's firing? to fight the Timeless One when the time comes?
Hummmm...

A bit long, sorry. but i'd be happy to discuss it!
 

Tokubetsu

Member
The new graphics are great and all but that remastered sound...sogood.gif. AR is loud as hell and I love it. The warthog minigun being steadily fired is like thunder. So much bass! Sub workout! Don't think even Reach sounded this great.
 
I definitely had problems trying to knock the Banshee down on AotCR the other day; it just wouldn't budge at all when firing through the floor with a rocket launcher. I had no problems doing it on the original. I ended up spending a good 15 minutes shooting all parts of the platform but didn't get the slightest hint of movement on the motion tracker.

On the subject of bugs, I've noticed several times where weapons and other objects such as flood limbs etc. get partially jammed in the level geometry and make quite an irritating sound, which I never had happen in the original. With weapons at least, if you hit them they then get launched flying out with a considerable amount of force.

So it would seem that there have been a few accidental changes in there at least.
 
Domino Theory said:
Can't...stop...pistol...whipping...audio...too...awesome
Ha, glad I'm not the only one.
Switching between the Pistol and the Plasma Rifle to listen to the sound effects is something I've been doing a lot too.

PsychoRaven said:
So Complete on normal with all skulls and terminals found.
Played through on Normal? Did you not find it super-easy? Save for one encounter I've found Heroic surprisingly easy. The reviewer is right about how our skills have been honed and even just how the weapon sandbox i.e. effectiveness has changed over the past 10 years.

JB1981 said:
Is the community actually playing the DLC/anniversary playlist ? Is matchmaking fast ?
You know, I wonder how well the game/dlc is doing. Playlist participation is smaller than I expected.
I've two quuestions in my head (not expecting an answer) :
-What are the sales expectations?
-If the game sells to a quiet/small enough base/looks weak on NPD, does it hurt the public perception of the franchise? Will people project a "Halo is done" meaning on the sales and thereby lower mass market interest in further titles? A weird snowballing effect?

Probably crazy, but just something that has been rolling around in my head.
 

PnCIa

Member
Love this game so far, so many memories. But there are two things this game does better than modern day Halo´s!

-The crosshair needs to be in the f*# middle!!!!
-wide FOV of maybe 80-90 degrees!!!

I hope Halo 4 has those qualities again, i never understood why Bungie set the crosshair lower than usual :/


///EDIT

I´ve got a question, from the credits it seems that the work on things we can actually see (art, models) was done by Saber only. Now, i don´t know who is working at 343 but they have their own artists right, they are not outsourcing everything for Halo 4?
 

Woorloog

Banned
TUROK said:
I love the Halo formula, but Halo 4 needs some new aces up its sleeve.

It should be more faster paced, perhaps with some of the parkour elements that Crysis 2 has. I mean, the Spartans in the books deviate greatly from the Spartans in the games, it's time to bridge the gap a bit.
Hell yeah! Vaulting, grabbing ledges, ability to "double jump" (jump on something and jump again immediatly to gain boost)... Combine Halo with Mirror's Edge, Faith with the strength of a Spartan.
Won't be happening for Halo 4 though, very unlikely... but maybe next gen, maybe Halo 5?
Oh and if armor abilities were implemented as "modes", something you can switch on the fly but have only one active at time.
 

Natiko

Banned
Played through about half of this game with a friend tonight. Man, it doesn't seem like they did all that much to optimizing performance. Very beginning of the first cutscene had slowdown and that continued to pop up throughout the night. Oh well, still fun revisiting.
 

monome

Member
Zeouterlimits said:
Ha, glad I'm not the only one.
Switching between the Pistol and the Plasma Rifle to listen to the sound effects is something I've been doing a lot too.


Played through on Normal? Did you not find it super-easy? Save for one encounter I've found Heroic surprisingly easy. The reviewer is right about how our skills have been honed and even just how the weapon sandbox i.e. effectiveness has changed over the past 10 years.


You know, I wonder how well the game/dlc is doing. Playlist participation is smaller than I expected.
I've two quuestions in my head (not expecting an answer) :
-What are the sales expectations?
-If the game sells to a quiet/small enough base/looks weak on NPD, does it hurt the public perception of the franchise? Will people project a "Halo is done" meaning on the sales and thereby lower mass market interest in further titles? A weird snowballing effect?

Probably crazy, but just something that has been rolling around in my head.


Modern Warfare MP makes Halo MP (and every other MP) cower in a corner. So sad :-(
 
PnCIa said:
I´ve got a question, from the credits it seems that the work on things we can actually see (art, models) was done by Saber only. Now, i don´t know who is working at 343 but they have their own artists right, they are not outsourcing everything for Halo 4?
Yes, 343I are their own fully fledged team, too hard at work on Halo 4 to do Anniversaries's Art. Impression is that the team from 343I that worked on Anniversary is quite small.
 

Monocle

Member
The terminals . . . HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGG. Best part of the remake by far. The remastered sound comes in second. The rocket launcher's melee and reload effects are so good with those satisfying deep thunks. I've been enjoying the enhanced music too.

I can't give the graphics unqualified praise. Although the new ultra-busy, everything-glows style is attractive at times, it's not faithful to the original, whose foreboding starkness invoked such a powerful sense of age and mystery. I'll always see Halo that way. It's one of the major reasons I love the game, and now it seems that, canonically, that's never how Installation 04 looked. The thought doesn't exactly cheer me up.

I say the original game was well served by the limitations imposed by the technology of its time. In general, too much artistic license was taken in Anniversary. Frequently it falls on the wrong side of the line between ornate and garish. While it's true that I can revisit the classic art any time I like just by pressing a button, I would much prefer the option to play with updated graphics that more closely resemble the original's.
 
Monocle said:
I can't give the graphics unqualified praise. Although the new ultra-busy, everything-glows style is attractive at times, it's not faithful to the original, whose foreboding starkness invoked such a powerful sense of age and mystery. I'll always see Halo that way. It's one of the major reasons I love the game, and now it seems that, canonically, that's never how Installation 04 looked. The thought doesn't exactly cheer me up.

I say the original game was well served by the limitations imposed by the technology of its time. In general, too much artistic license was taken in Anniversary. Frequently it falls on the wrong side of the line between ornate and garish. While it's true that I can revisit the classic art any time I like just by pressing a button, I would much prefer the option to play with updated graphics that more closely resemble the original's.
Very much in this camp. Saving myself from writing a big "review" until I'm less busy, but way too much artistic licence has been taken making it seem like 343I wanted to brute force C.E. to line up with their art bible for Halo 4.
 
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